July 22, 2013

Hello aliens to my mission field,

Well this week was transfer week so we had Elder Moon say good bye to people all over Harrisonburg. Not really, but he did use most of our allotted miles so we have to play it cool for a week and a half. So during those three days we were able to teach Joyce twice and our neighbor's (Delilah’s) boyfriend which is sweet cuz he used to be an athiest but now he’s interested and has already read like 16 chapters in 1 Nephi! Elder Moon pawned two copies of the Book of Mormon to this mentally handicapped guy named Ray Hersler who had the 1830s edition of the Book of Mormon. The first thing Ray said to us when we met him was, “If I was dressed up like you guys, I would preach that evolution was a fact.” Elder Moon offered to trade one of the Books of Mormon we hand out, but that was a no go.  Then he offered a New York World Fair edition.  Ray still said no.  Then Elder Moon groveled and said the New York edition was rarer then the 1830s edition.  After talking to B. Liskey, it turns out that’s true, so it’s a good thing Ray didn’t trade for it. Funniness there.  On the last night of our companionship Elder Dalby and his greenie came by and he burned a tie and then we had the Jeeps side by side with us sitting on top of them posing like models. It was hilariously funny. 

Transfers were different due to the fact we had to sing 8 different songs before the trainees and trainers came out. President Wilson announced the names of the companionships and I got Elder Swann who is a visa waiter for Brazil and speaks Portuguese. So if he gets his visa with me then I’m in trouble and will need another companion. 

I’ll wrap things up for the week. We finally got to teach this guy named Justin Wang and he was referred to us a while back. He’s a very nice guy and he works a lot in the Chinese restaurant near here and is the only English speaker there so he has to take care of the English-speaking customers. We found out that he leaves on August 5th to go to Missouri for college so we might have to fast teach him if he’s ready. We helped move a less active lady out of Lineweaver Apartments. It was the grossest experience touching this dirty smoke smelling couch while going down disgusting hallways and elevators. We also have been teaching more people consistently that we have had a hard time getting a hold of. A cool experience was when we were tracting this neighborhood and it was really hot.  We met this guy in the first house and he spoke only Spanish so Elder Swann whipped into action and talked it up the best he could so we got a referral for the Spanish Elders!  Cha-ching!  The last door we knocked on was this guy named John and he had talked to missionaries in the Dominican Republic so he’s interested, plus he lost the Book of Mormon they gave him so he was super glad to get another one and learn more. We sweat a lot that day. 

We have a lot of fun though because Elder Swann wants to do or knows how to do the things I’m really interesting in doing like parkour, playing guitar, and making jokes. One incident that just killed me was when his bracelet broke while we were on this doorstep. We gathered the pieces and he put them in his pocket and started singing,"I got a pocket, got a pocket full of beads." It’s been really fun with Elder Swann. 

I love you family and friends and random people i allow to see what I do in a missionary week.

Elder McClure